Awesome

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published July 31, 2017

• University of Basel biologists writing in the journal Science of Nature in March calculated that the global population of spiders consumes at least 400 million tons of prey yearly -- about as much, by weight, as the total of meat and fish consumed by all humans.

• University of Utah researchers trained surveillance cameras on dead animals in a local desert to study scavenger behavior and were apparently astonished to witness the disappearances of two bait cows. Over the course of five days, according to the biologists' recent journal article, two different badgers, working around the clock for days, had dug adjacent holes and completely buried the cows (for storage and/or to keep the carcasses from competitors). [BBC News, 3-15-2017] [NPR, 4-4-2017]